Energy storage developer Pacific Green is eyeing a future grid-connected battery energy storage park in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia.
Today (3 December), the company announced it had secured a “strategic parcel of land” in Wagga Wagga, located near TransGrid’s existing Wagga 330kV substation. Pacific Green hopes to develop one of its energy parks in this location, citing its “strategic importance to the national grid,” via its participation in the National Electricity Market (NEM).
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Pacific Green has become a well-known entity in the Australian energy storage market owing to the grid-scale energy parks it is developing across the NEM, often with hundreds of megawatts planned output and gigawatt-hour-scale storage capacity.
For instance, the company has been developing the Limestone Coast Energy Park in South Australia, comprising 500MW/1.5GWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS).
The company also recently applied for approval under the Australian government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act for its 1GW/2.5GWh Portland BESS in Victoria, another energy park.
These developments all contribute to Pacific Green’s wider goal to build a 10GWh development pipeline of battery energy parks throughout Australia. This figure has increased on the original 8.5GWh pipeline it targeted in October 2023.
Joel Alexander, managing director and CEO of Pacific Green Australia, said today’s announcement is a milestone for the company because it presents a more diversified portfolio of energy storage projects in Australia.
“From our entry into Australia, we set out to diversify our regional presence, which now includes a pipeline of projects in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. A greater diversity of storage locations across the country will support the strengthening, reliability and security of our national energy system.
“The team looks forward to working with stakeholders in and around Wagga Wagga in these early stages of project design to ensure we shape an energy park best suited to the specific needs and opportunities of the region.”
Wagga Wagga’s strategic importance in the energy transition
Wagga Wagga, a small city located west of the Australian Capital Territory, is increasingly becoming an area of strategic importance, owing to the several large-scale renewable energy generation projects being developed alongside the HumeLink transmission line.
Transgrid is developing the HumeLink, a new 500kV transmission line that will connect Wagga Wagga, Bannaby, and Maragle. This will increase the capacity available for large-scale renewable energy generation projects to be used on the grid.
Transgrid states that HumeLink will be one of the projects that help unlock the full capacity of the expanded Snowy Hydro Scheme, better known as Snowy 2.0, which will see a 2GW pumped hydro energy storage project built with a storage duration of 175 hours.
Alongside HumeLink, Transgrid contracted Edify Energy’s 150MW/300MWh Riverina and Darlington Point BESS earlier this year to tackle a constrained area of its network between Darlington Point and Wagga Wagga, increasing its capacity by 120MW.
